Ukrainian officials bare their assets

Faberge eggs tend to cost upward of £1m and Ukrainians are wondering how a public official has come to own some

Ukrainians have been rather surprised to learn what their public officials own this weekend.

Politicians, civil servants and judges all had until Sunday to declare their assets online, as part of anti-corruption reforms. This information is now available on a publicly searchable database.

A ticket for a commercial flight into space - worth more than £100,000 - is among the things Ukrainian politicians have declared owning

Not only have some officials admitted to hoarding great piles of cash and owning expensive cars, Faberge eggs, watches and flats, but some rather unconventional assets also came to light. These included a church, a saint's relic and even a ticket for a future commercial space flight aboard Virgin Galactic. In case you're wondering, tickets for those are worth more than $121,600 (£100,000, 111,000 euros).

Transparency International Ukraine joked the declarations showed MPs "can issue loans to the IMF" rather than the other way around.

One Facebook user also claimed to have developed an online calculator for the physical volumes of cash reported, which also suggests appropriate storage places - wallets to warehouses.

But there was also real anger at the revelations. Ukraine's minimum wage at the moment is only 1,600 hryvnias a month (£51, $63).

"In civilised countries, mountains of money come from three types of business: drug dealing, prostitution and arms trading. In Ukraine, it is something else - it is just public administration," said one popular Facebook comment.

"A significant portion of our politicians and officials are magicians. They have not worked a day in business, yet they can become owners of flats, cars, luxury watches, safes full of money, and even a small church... I see no reason why these talented individuals cannot perform a miracle for the Ukrainian economy not unlike the one they performed for their personal wealth," said another.

Source:BBC News